October 29th, 2015 – With the reopening of Italian base “Mario Zucchelli” in Terra Nova Bay in Antarctica, yesterday the XXXI Antarctic summer 2015-2016 Campaign of the National Research Program in Antarctica (PNRA) was officially launched. Full functionality at the base after the long Antarctic winter – explains a note by ENEA – will be restored by a first group of people consisting of the expedition leader Gianluca Bianchi Fasani and 12 technicians from ENEA, as well as two military officers for the operations halls, a doctor, a cook and three New Zealanders helicopter pilots. The Campaign will develop over the next four months, or during the Antarctic summer, with particularly complex environmental conditions, since temperatures average between 0 ° C and -35 ° C along the Antarctic coast, where the Mario Zucchelli Station is located, and requires adaptation to 24 hours of light per day for the entire season. More than 200 people are taking part in this campaign, including technicians and researchers Italians and foreigners, arriving in the coming weeks. The PNRA Expedition is funded by the Ministry of Education University and Research according to the strategic directions of the National Scientific Commission for Antarctica (CSNA). The research, coordinated by the National Research Council, will address: biodiversity, evolution and adaptation of Antarctic organisms, earth sciences, glaciology, environmental contamination, atmospheric science and space, monitoring activities at the Observatories permanent weather-climate and astronomical geophysicists.
